Not unusual and not really breaking news. The truly sad part is that there are so many mind-numbed Americans out there who do not and never will realize the signficance of it until it is too late. Ergo, it will do little good to push the issue.

The Al Qaeda leadership must be highly pleased that things may be going their way because of the current self-absorption of the American voting population with domestic issues. Their view has to be that, with an Obama win, the “enemy” will all but abandon the battlefield in an internal squabble over taxes, health care, Wall Street, CEO compensation levels, the Fairness Doctrine, oil company profits, ad nauseum.

Moreover, Al Qaeda is not stupid. They surely have been following the debate in this country over the counterterrorism measures instituted by the Bush administration — Patriot Act; NSA phone intercepts; etc. — with the assumption that many of the most effective counterterrorist techniques may be eliminated or at least handicapped by an Obama presidency with an enhanced Congressional majority, especially given the importance of the radical Left in the Obama political support mechanism.

Al Qaeda also realizes that the modern American is very poor at remembering or learning from history. They have surely studied at length how the Soviets and North Vietnamese played this country like a piano by making use of the American anti-war crowd. (Does Bill Ayers come to mind?) Al Qaeda may be on the cusp of getting their own opportunity to play this same piano — with the prize being much greater than Vietnam ever was. If I were in the Al Qaeda leadership, I would be laughing out loud over how so many Americans seem ready, for example, to substitute victory on the battlefield for a feel-good relationship with the French and other erstwhile allies and a goody two-shoes image in the eyes of other nations.

And I would be rolling on the ground with mirth at claims by Obama, the icon of the current American anti-war element, that he will lead America into a much enlarged and much more effective war in Afghanistan and even succeed where Bush has failed in dragging Osama Bid Laden out of the hole in which he may be hiding. Al Qaeda (and Taliban) planners have only to figure out how many American body bags will be required in Afghanistan before Obama’s political knees begin to shake under an assault by the unthinking, disillusioned and re-enraged anti-war Left. And with a re-election campaign coming up in 2012?

Now, I am sure that Zimzo, Puffy, Lovisa, and others may insist that I am misjudging the skill, determination, and thus far hidden military talents of their good buddy Obama. They should feel free to lob their in-comings. That will not change my opinion that an Obama win on 4 November may lead to a radical redefinition of the counterterrorist battlefield and make the battle much, much harder to fight.

And please do not try to use the argument that, in the fight to protect us from terrorist violence, Bush’s counterterrorist tactics have eroded our personal freedoms. I personally fought a long battle in my lifetime against terrorists, sometimes with satisying victories and sometimes with bloody and heart breaking losses. I can tell you that, when it came time to carry the bodies or parts of the bodies of terrorist victims to the grave, no one was babbling about how our protectors were eroding our constitutional liberties. The more frequent response was to point a finger at guys like me and ask why we did not do enough to catch the bastards before they were able to sow their seeds of death. Obama supporters better hope and pray that he has the guts to face that kind of situation. He will have to learn quickly the difference between being a community organizer and serving as a leader in a campaign where the only choices are life or death.

Written by Stay Puft Marshmallow Man about 6 years ago.

yeah, and I hear McCain has a new media spokesperson: shiplap the douche!

Written by Shiplap about 6 years ago.

Your comments never fail to reach what we expect from you Stay Puft.

Written by Stay Puft Marshmallow Man about 6 years ago.

right back at you, love

the difference between the ridiculous things I say and the ridiculous things you say is that I’m kidding

Many people believe that our invasion of Iraq helped Al Qaeda. So they like President Bush and would not want the U.S. to withdraw as this would take the air out of their sails. This logic would follow that they would want McCain to become president because he would stay in Iraq as long as possible.

A shift to the stragetic defense by the U.S. under President Obama would be the last thing in the world that they would want.

I hope I have this correct, because I am having great difficulty understanding why any of this would be true.

I want to win the war. I want Al Qaeda to be on the defensive. I just can’t see why our enemies would not want to win, nor can I see why they would not want us on the defensive.

crazy extremist terrorist types want us in Iraq, it’s a recruitment poster. Those guys are big on things like death and chaos. so as long as there’s a war going in their land, they’re winning. who’s going to sign up to blow themselves up in a marketplace if there’s a peaceful, functioning society? the more instability the more influence they have, and when we invaded Iraq we gave them instability by the barrel.

Written by Wolverine about 6 years ago.

Joe Six-Pack, I agree that, at least in the first few years, the US presence in Iraq did rebound to the profit of Al Qaeda in some ways. It apparently drew new recruits to their standard much in the way that Islamic radicals migrated to Afghanistan to join the battle against the infidel Soviets. Moreover, when the IED’s started to hit our troops virtually every day and the anti-war outcry began stateside, Al Qaeda could point out that the Americans were not really the unbeatable leviathans they appeared to be when Baghdad fell so quickly. The video tapes portraying the beheading of Americans and other allied personel were, in my opinion, intended in part to emphasize that very point.

I believe that the “surge” genuinely changed all that. The larger troop presence, the improved strategy and tactics implemented by our military leaders, and a growing willingness among even Sunnis to turn against the local Al Qaeda forces seem to have changed the nature of this battlefield. The IED’s have largely fallen silent, and our troops are withdrawing peacefully from what used to be some of the hottest of hot spots in that whole war-torn country. Indeed, ALL OF US are now talking about an eventual troop drawdown, even though we don’t agree on the timing and method.

So, where does that put Al Qaeda? I think it it would cause them to consider quite another, alternate and perhaps last-gasp possibility for profiting from our Iraqi venture. If the Americans can be induced to withdraw before the mission is truly completed, Al Qaeda may be able to move back in and then demonstrate to one and all that the Americans have not changed at all since the days of Vietnam. Hold out long enough. Be patient. The Americans are unable to resist internal political pressure and will once again blow it. A lesson straight out of Ho Chi Minh’s playbook. The next step? Apply the same strategy to Afghanistan.

Any such strategic planning on the part of Al Qaeda would seem to hold out less of a possibility of success under McCain — at least, one can assume so from what he has said in this campaign. Obama, on the other hand, has indicated that withdrawal is one of the items at the top of his agenda, even though I have noticed a tendency on his part over the past few months to modify his stance just a bit. The big elephant in Obama’s room? The anti-war element that gave him a first major boost in his campaign for the presidency and which will certainly watch his actions closely and remind him that 2012 will not be long in coming.

So which electoral outcome would Al Qaeda relish? The guy who gives every indication of seeking withdrawal sooner rather than later regardless of the true situation on the ground? Or the guy who is determined to push on until he is fully satisfied that we have kicked every ass that can be kicked and are truly ready to safely call it day?

In the end, we, in my opinion, should do all we can to give the Iraqis a fair shot at creating a stable and peaceful nation. If they succeed, great! If they fail despite everything we have done, so be it. History will surely state that their fate was ultimately in their own hands, and they just couldn’t manage it. And I think the muse of history will also note that America gave it a damn good try.

Written by Wolverine about 6 years ago.

Good Golly, Kevin! Who else would Abu have his money on other than than BO?!! Crazy back to you!

Written by dans about 6 years ago.

Wolv,

I agree with you that the general feeling by our enemies toward the US under an Obama administration will be very similar to what we had under Clinton.

I imagine the expectation is that our intelligence services will be hamstrung, and our counter terrorism units will be mired down in the muck of political correctness.

Will our level of military readiness be retracted ? I expect so if Obama wins.

Written by dans about 6 years ago.

cmac,

“Has anyone heard of the results of the Children’s Scholastic vote tally? The kids are usually right about the election.”

Stay Puft, if Obama wins this thing, I think the anti-war element will be after his ass to get us out of Iraq ASAP — not 2011. If he dithers and prolongs it, no matter how valid his arguments, that element will begin reminding him forcefully about who helped to bring him to the dance and why they chose to do so. Even Obama knows that people like CODEPINK are not very open to reason. I tend to go along with what David Broder said recently in the Washington Post: Obama may have the shortest beginning-of-term “honeymoon” in the history of the presidency.

Moreover, it will be most interesting to see him face off against CODEPINK and their ilk if and when he follows through on his campaign promises of an enlarged war in Afghanistan. I, quite frankly, don’t think the anti-war element quite believes yet that he may be telling the truth on that matter.

Call me “buckeye”, will you? Them’s fightin’ words, pal. Watch yer language, or you’ll discover that there’s no place in Metro Detroit where you can hide!

SP, you are such a savant, I imagine you impress the heck out of yourself..

Written by Wolverine about 6 years ago.

kevin,

No. 22: You are absolutely right. The anti-war element would be after McCain as well on the Iraq issue. Big difference though:(1) McCain would not be reneging on a campaign promise; and (2) McCain would not owe a political debt to that element.

No. 23: ????????????????????????

Written by dans about 6 years ago.

Wolverine, The Iraq war was the #1 campaign issue in 2006. But after the elections, the left did a vanishing act on this.

Written by Wolverine about 6 years ago.

Kevin,

You perplexed me a bit with your No. 23 post. Let me try anyway. I agree with you 100% that Abu wants to wipe us off the face of the earth. His whole existence is dedicated to that end. He is savvy enough to know that any “wiping” is made much easier when your opponent leans politically toward a weakening of his own counterterrorist defenses. I saw Clinton do just that. You know the results: Kovar Towers; Nairobi; Dar es Salaam; USS Cole; Twin Towers.

I am not saying that Abu will ever accomplish his primary goal. I am just trying to get into his mindset. If he perceives weakness on the part of his opponents, he and his friends will act. The result will certainly be more spilling of blood.

My fear is that a President Obama might make the same mistakes as Clinton and we would begin paying the same price all over again. My only hope is that Obama would learn something from Clinton’s errors. However, given the nature of the domestic political forces which make up a good part of Obama’s electoral base and given a natural desire for re-election to a second term, I wonder how he could avoid responding to the “clamor of the crowd” for what would amount to an evisceration of the Patriot Act and other tactical measures which, you have to admit, have kept us free from domestic attacks for almost eight years.

I have to admit that some Obama supporters really mystify me. They act as if the war against terrorism is some distant thing that will never again touch their own lives. It seems that they have no concept of ever becoming victims themselves. If I could, I would personally introduce them to other people who once thought that way. Unfortunately, the other people are all dead. But you would think the Obama crowd would realize at the very least that there were Democrats and liberals and “progressives” who went down in the Twin Towers with everyone else. Abu and his friends do not play political favorites when they decide to strike.

By the way, my post No. 11 was intended as sarcasm. I should have known better. Sarcasm and attempts at humor are too often misread on this blog. I promise to stick to straight talk from now on.

Written by Stay Puft Marshmallow Man about 6 years ago.

dans, why say that? did I impress the heck out of you?

one bright note for you about that scholastic kids vote: mccain one colorado 61% to 35% did you notice that?

Dans, I think we’re on the same page here. The “vanishing act” is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You know full well where your man stands on the war issue. You also know that, in order to be in a position to implement your agenda, he needs to pull in votes from all across the political spectrum. So you tone it down and allow him, with the help of a compliant media, to both project an image of foreign policy “gravitas” (much as I hate that word!) and switch the principal theme of his campaign to bread-and butter domestic issues without having a bunch of anti-war radicals hanging visibly from his coattails. Smart move. Do just the opposite of what doomed George McGovern in 1972.

You have to admit that they have handled it pretty well. They, of course, were helped immensely by the absence of the military draft to stir up flagrant anti-war opposition. Nevertheless, the tactic did show some cracks in Denver and later in Minneapolis with the chunky lady in the pink t-shirt. I noticed that they clamped down on that pretty fast. Pending the results of 4 November, I firmly believe that their next step will be to wait until 20 January 2009 and then show up at the White House with a fistful of IOU’s.